For that matter, Fan couldn’t recall the last time she’d bought something so frivolous for herself. Instead she’d always dutifully put her share of the company’s profits into the double-locked strongbox inside the wall of her bedchamber against hard times, the way Father had instructed. She was always conscious of that, of how she wasn’t like other women with a husband to look after her. She’d no one now but herself to rely upon for the future. She’d no one to blame, either, if she died in the poorhouse, or if some cowardly fool like Bob Forbert finally decided to turn evidence against her to the magistrates.
Yet the earrings were lovely things, and Fan let herself smile at her reflection as the red-tinged sparkles danced over her cheeks.
“Them garnets are as right as can be for you, miss,” coaxed the girl. “You won’t find any finer on this coast, not in Lydd nor Hythe, neither, and I vow—la, what be that ruckus?”
The girl hurried to the shop’s doorway, the looking-glass still in her hands, and curiously Fan followed. Tunford was a small village with only a handful of narrow lanes, sleepy and quiet the way country villages always were.
But it wasn’t quiet now. Two large wagons piled high with barrels, trunks, and boxes were coming to a noisy stop before the Tarry Man, Tunford’s favorite public house, their four-horse dray teams snorting and pawing the rutted soil while their drivers bawled for the hostler. Dogs raced forward, barking and yelping with excitement, and children soon came running along, too.
Even before the wagons had stopped, the eight passengers who’d been riding precariously on top began to clamber down, laughing and jumping to the ground as nimbly as acrobats. They were strong, sinewy, exotic men, all burned dark as mahogany from the sun, with gold hoops in their ears and long braided queues down their backs: deep-water sailors, man-o’-war crewmen that were seldom seen in a group like this outside of the fleet’s ports.
“What d’you make of all that, miss?” marveled the shopgirl. “Looks like half the Brighton circus, come here to Tunford!”
But it wasn’t the Brighton circus, half or otherwise, thought Fan with sickening certainty as she watched over the other woman’s shoulder. Over and over she had told herself this wouldn’t happen, until she’d let herself believe it. What was arriving in Tunford, and soon after at Feversham, was going to outdo any mere circus, and cause a great many more problems.
Because there, riding on a prancing chestnut gelding as he joined the wagons carrying his belongings, was Captain Lord Claremont.
Chapter Four
It took considerable determination for Fan to make herself walk slowly across the lane towards Captain Claremont, as if she’d been planning all morning to do exactly that. What she really wished to do, of course, was to race back to Feversham, lock every door, and bury her head beneath her bed pillow upstairs like a terrified cony in her burrow. But Father had taught her that danger was best confronted face-to-face, and so she did, even managing a polite smile to mask the thumping of her heart.
“Good day, Captain My Lord,” she called as he swung down from his horse. “I did not expect to see you again so soon.”
Clearly surprised, he turned at her voice, ducking around the chestnut’s neck to find her. He smiled warmly as she came closer, and swept his black cocked hat from his head to salute her, there in the middle of Tunford.
“Miss Winslow,” he boomed, his voice so cheerfully loud that she was certain they must be hearing it clear in Portsmouth. “Good day to you. I did not expect to see you here, either.”
She’d forgotten how very blue his eyes were, as if they’d stolen the brightest color from the sky above, so blue that she had to look away, towards the wagons and the grinning sailors watching them with undisguised curiosity.
“You are making a journey, Captain My Lord?” she asked, foolishly saying the obvious as she hoped and prayed he was going somewhere on the far side of the world.
“I am,” he declared, the sunlight glinting off the gold buttons on his coat. “And likely you have guessed my destination as well. Feversham, Miss Winslow. Feversham, my new home port. You have received the letter from Potipher, I trust?”
“No,” said Fan faintly, the awful certainty knotting tightly in her stomach. “I have had no letter from anyone.”
“No?” The captain frowned, his blue eyes clouding. “Potipher was to have written to you. So you’d know, you see. So you’d be prepared.”
“No letter,” she said again, and swallowed hard as she tugged her shawl higher over her shoulders. She didn’t want to know, and she didn’t want to be prepared. “I’ve had nothing from—”
“Miss Winslow!” The shopgirl came puffing up beside them, her expression as stern as her round face could muster. “Miss Winslow, if you don’t be wanting them garnet ear-bobs, then I must be taking them back to the shop.”
“Oh, I am so sorry!” Fan flushed, her fingers flying guiltily to the earrings. “I forgot I even had them on. Here, take them back, if you please. I do not think they suit me after all.”
“I think they suit you vastly well,” said the captain gallantly. “A spot of color is just the thing for you.”
The flush in her cheeks deepened, more scarlet than any miserable garnets, and hastily she pulled the earrings from her ears.
“Thank you,” she said, pressing them into the girl’s waiting palm. “Besides, they’re too dear for me.”
“How dear can they be?” asked the captain. “What’s the price, missy?”
“Twenty-five shillings, M’Lord,” answered the shopgirl, simpering up at him as she brazenly tripled the price that she’d asked of Fan earlier. “They be French garnets and filigree-work.”
“And now they shall belong to Miss Winslow,” he said, reaching into his waistcoat pocket for the coins, “for I cannot imagine them hanging from any other ears than hers.”
“No!” gasped Fan. True, she’d been fancying them, but fancies didn’t account for gossip, or whispers, or how accepting such a gift from him would rob her of all respect from the men in the Company. “You cannot! I will not take the earrings! That is—that is, it’s not proper for me to accept such a gift from you!”
His face fell, and he rubbed the back of his neck, a rare, restless little gesture of indecision for a man like him.
“It is not intended as a gift such as that,” he explained. “Not as a gentleman to a lady, that is. I meant it to make up for Potipher not sending that dam—that letter to you, as he ought to have.”
“Why?” she demanded, though she was already guessing—no, she already knew—the truth. He would be the new master, for as long a lease as the Trelawneys would grant him.
“Because I haven’t just let Feversham, as I’d first intended,” he said, unable to keep the satisfied pride from his voice. “I’ve bought it outright.”
She stared at him, dumbstruck. He’d bought Feversham? Had his captain’s share of that Spanish treasure ship truly been so vast, or were even younger sons of dukes wealthy enough to make such a purchase with ease?
“That is where I’m bound now,” he continued, “to take possession. There’s nothing to be gained by wasting time, is there?”
Aware of her shock, his smile turned lopsided as he answered quickly to fill her silence. “No, no, there isn’t, not at all. But this will be easier for us both if we—”